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Farasin Khabarin
Not all Arab warriors are light skirmishers or spearmen with little or no armour. Some Arab chieftains, made rich by their control of vital trade routes out of the Middle East into Europe and Asia, have been able to purchase enough armour and fodder to raise bodies of picked horsemen for close-up wet work. Farasin Khabarin thus play an important role in Nabataean armies. Having some armour and a good steed, they are thus able to function like most other lancer units in battle, charging and running down the foe whereso needed. As long as the way is clear and there are no heavier units in their path, you can use these hardened men to cut a bloody swathe of terror and gore through your foes. See also *''Zradha Pahlavans'' *''Rauxsa-alanna Wazdatta'' *Katuekuauiroi *''Hippeis Xystophoroi'' *''Hippeis Thessalikoi'' *Equites Extraordinarii *Agema Klerouchikon Hippeon Background Although the famous 19th century British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli famously declared Arabs as "Jews on horseback" (as his surname suggests Disraeli himself was Jewish), the association of Arabs with horses did not exactly take place until the Middle Ages. As the interior of the Arabian Peninsula has been dry for approximately 10,000 years, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, for horses — an animal more accustomed to plains and prairies — to exist in that arid land without the aid of man. Further, the domestication of the camel circa 3500 BCE provided the nomadic Arabs with a more reliable means of transport and sustenance needed to survive the perils of life in central Arabia, an area into which they must have ventured about 2500 BCE. For this reason, the horse — until recently — was, like everywhere else in the Hellenistic era outside of Central Asia, associated with the nobility. To function properly and be more than just a food animal, horses needed special care, from their handling all the way to the very food that they had. All this required a cadre of specialised labour which simply was not accessible except to those men of means such as rich magnates or a landed aristocracy with the power to command such forces. Another drawback of horse cavalry for the Arabs, in addition to their cost, was the fact that horses would spook easily in close proximity to camelry — making it harder to use them effectively on tha battlefield. Ergo, the way of Arab warfare preferred to divide the roles of camels and horses — the slower but cheaper camelry would be used as "tanks", owing to their resilience and their height advantage, while the faster and more expensive horses were used as flank strike teams. This would have been the way most Arab tribes fought until the emergence of Turkish arms and cavalry tactics in the Islamic era — and even then, such tactics were associated with the more cosmopolitan northern Middle East, as opposed to the Arabian peninsula which continued to remain as barren and impoverished as it was in the Prophet's day. Category:Nabataeans